Indian Summer

Valerio Zurlini is not a household name but he is a director I love, Here he has the great Enrico Medioli as his writing partner and Alain Delon as his leading man. Cold, arid, fascinating tale. From Delon's substitute professor to Sonia Petrova's beautiful student nobody ever smiles, or very rarely. The wonderful Giancarlo Giannini is the one that brings the color and the joy and Alida Valli provide us with one hell of a scene. Rimini is also a character, a cold Rimini, out of business and an air of Fellini's I Vitelloni in the air. Very rewarding in its desolation.

Weak plot, extra weak script and you could see what was next on the agenda from miles away.

The teacher walked around like a PI with his overcoat lapel up even while indoors. Too weak and totally outlandish and straight out the gate the script had him focused on the one girl.

It seems that these producers will find any bit of written garbage if it allows them to have young women get naked for the weakest of reasons.

Even when there is zero chemistry between the two actors. The only bright spot in this softcore porn is that the teacher dies and not soon enough.

I gave it 8 stars, subtracted 6 stars for the predictability of the movie and added 1 star for the death of the POS teacher.

I was forced to settle for an unbelievably awful home brew English subtitle pirated copy so my take away is more of an emotional impression than a deep understanding. Apparently Delon hated working with this director and it didn't click enough with audiences to ever get a proper international dvd release. Boo! That being said, the solemn, hopeless beauty of the outsider leads and their star crossed romance screams of untold potential. I just wish I had a better idea of what was going on than just an outline of depressed, lonely teacher + disillusioned young student + gambling problem + Italian mafia = tragedy. Seriously, the only available English subtitling is so bad that it was like reading the cliff notes of a mad man who is incapable of complete sentences.

In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici (Alain Delon) arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the Liceu replacing another teacher. His relationship with his mate Monica (Lea Massari) is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio Mosca (Giancarlo Giannini), Marcello (Renato Salvatori) and Gerardo Pavani (Adalberto Maria Merli). In classroom, he meets the gorgeous nineteen years old mysterious student Vanina Abati (Sonia Petrova), who is Gerardo's girlfriend, and he feels a great attraction for her. They meet and know each other outside class, and they fall in love for each other. Their relationship leads to a tragic end.

"La Prima Notte di Quiete" is a cold, melancholic, cruel and tragic story, with magnificent performance of Alain Delon, perfectly developing the character of a desperate atheist man in existentialistic crisis. The beautiful cinematography and the music score are cold, as the environment of Rimini, Sonia Petrova is one of the most gorgeous actresses I have ever seen and is also perfect in the role of an young woman with a hidden past. The personal dramas are disclosed and developed in a slow pace and are very sad. Unfortunately there is no other movie available on VHS or DVD in Brazil of this great Italian director Valerio Zurlini, who seems to have been forgotten by our national distributors. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Primeira Noite de Tranquilidade" ("The First Night of Tranquility")

This movie was a chore to sit through, excruciating to watch from start to finish, cuz of how dull and uninteresting it is (and...was that guy Zurlini trying to be the new Mike Antonioni?) Whatever.

And what about Delon playing the loser once in a while? A terrible casting methinks, he was not the type to play characters like this, and his acting here is not very memorable, and looks too forced. The ONLY slightly interesting thing in this rubbish, is the character played by skinny beauty Sonia Petrovna, Vanina, who is the girlfriend of the thug Gerardo just out of interest, though she doesn't love him in the least. She then falls in love with the teach Daniele played by Delon, etc.

But overall this dreadful movie is to be avoided. For fans of snail racing only. (1.5/10)